Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh takes college football recruiting to a whole new level

Everyone knows the world of college football recruiting is crazy, but Michigan's Jim Harbaugh may have taken it to a whole new level during the past week.

Harbaugh reportedly showed up the minute an NCAA non-contact period ended at 12:01 a.m. Thursday and spent the night at a recruit's home to help convince him to play football for the Wolverines.

Now whether Harbaugh actually rolled out his sleeping bag and fired up the S'mores remains to be seen since NCAA rules forbid coaches from discussing recruits until they sign letters of intent, but what a recruit interview with Scout.com and social media posts clearly indicate he went above and beyond the usual methods to land a pledge from a top athlete.

You would assume based on all of this attention that the recruit is some five-star quarterback or perhaps a devastating linebacker, but you would be wrong. No, the recruit was Quinn Nordin, a three-star kicker out of Rockford High (Mich.) who has already committed to Penn State.

That's right — a kicker.

Granted, he's the top kicker in the 2016 recruiting class, but when is the last time you've heard of a coach planning a sleepover to recruit a kicker?

Harbaugh not only spent the evening with Nordin and his family, but he went with him to school. The entire day's interaction was first reported by Scout.com and documented on social media by Nordin, his family and his friends.

These sorts of tactics — maybe not quite as extreme as the recruitment of Nordin — have been used for years. Stories of coaches spending days, weeks and even months checking in with recruits just to make sure they could sign top atheletes are woven into college football's rich tapestry.

But a sleepover? That is a first.

Not everyone in Rockford was sold on Harbaugh's visit.

One resident erected a sign in their front lawn stating, "Welcome, Coach Harbaugh! Michigan State 27, Michigan 23. Go Green. Go White." It earned a social media shout-out from Harbaugh himself, who tweeted out a picture of the sign with the words, "I respect the preparation! #GoBlue."

I can't tell if Jim Harbaugh is crazy, a genius or perhaps a bit of both.

But here's the thing, as crazy as Harbaugh's antics seem, they're also some of the most brilliant.

Recruiting is all about egos.

Most high school players love the attention heaped upon them from the thousands of recruiting flyers that overflow their mailboxes to the personal, in-home visits by coaches. Families sometimes welcome coaches into their homes like long lost relatives, offering them a hearty meal and warm place to sit down and rest their weary bones after a tough day of recruiting.

So imagine the surprise when a coach of Harbaugh's status decides to come to your house and even is willing to walk the halls of your high school with you? It's no wonder some of these recruits would get a bit star-struck.

And Harbaugh doesn't want to stop at just sleeping on your pull-out couch.

He's reportedly is interested in hosting part of his spring practices at IMG Academy in Bradenton — a mere 1,206 from Michigan's campus in Ann Abor. It's a move that would put the Wolverines coincidently in the heart of Florida's recruiting hotbed.

Michigan's 2016 recruiting class is currently ranked No. 2 in the nation by 247sports.com and No. 3 nationally by Rivals.com with National Signing Day, which lands on Feb. 3, just a few weeks away. It's on track to be the highest ranked recruiting class for the Wolverines since they finished fourth in 2013.

That's good news for a program coming off its first double-digit win season since 2011 and awash in unbridled optimism heading into the 2016 season.

The NCAA wrapped up its annual convention this week in San Antonio, Texas, with several key points still left on table for more discussion. The biggest issue drawing the most concern was time demands on college athletes.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said the organization needs to focus on three priorities in the future: academics, fairness and health and well-being. That includes working toward finding a better balance between academics and athletics for students.

Those sentiments were echoed by the athletes themselves.

The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee revealed the results of a survey of more 28,000 athletes on the issue of time management. Several concerns were brought to the group's attention, according to a report outlined on NCAA.org:

1. While Division I athletes are required to have one day off a week from practice and competition, many of those surveyed would prefer that the day off not involve travel to and from competitions.

2. [The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee] wished to see Division I officials change the weekly number of hours spent on sports activities — currently limited to 20 hours — to a daily cap examined on a sport-by-sport basis.

3. Many of the responders would also prefer to have a mandatory "no-activity period" at the end of the season, with the majority in favor of a stretch that included one to four weeks.

"One thing that would help in this whole issue of time demands is just recognition of the time that we do spend," said Rachel Scott, the co-vice chair and a graduate student at the University of Texas. "We have this 20-hour rule, but are we actually spending 20 hours doing countable athletically-related activities? Maybe, maybe not."

Members of the Power 5 conferences, as part of their NCAA autonomy, voted to pass a resolution aimed at reforming the time demands on athletes during next year's session — essentially passing on the opportunity for meaningful change until a point in the future when group deems it's ready.

This issue isn't going to go away anytime soon. Athletes have been balancing the issues of academics and athletics for quite some time, but their voices have gained great prominence and weight.

Expect there to be a lot of discussion on this subject during the conferences' spring meetings in May ahead of the next round of potential NCAA meetings.